


Mother's Day Memorial

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-09
Updated: 2008-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slade and Joey go together to let Joey say goodbye</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother's Day Memorial

**Author's Note:**

> This is set against an RP where Slade was framed and Joey came back good

Joe and his father boarded the private plane, and Joe settled into the copilot position easily enough, checking over the board to see if he was familiar enough with the instruments. Slade looked over, pointed out a couple of features, and settled into the flight. Once the auto-pilot was set, he turned in his seat enough to get his eye back on his son. 

"You said you're handling things better... so what else is going on?"

Joe rolled his shoulders in a shrug. [New team on the East coast. Raven didn't get to steer clear long.]

"Delightful. And you still in San Francisco?" Slade shook his head. Once upon a time, the Titans had been very different. Of course, so had he. His slow change for what some would call the better, as he found things other than killing to intrigue him, seemed almost mirrored by the Titans changing for the worse.

Joe didn't answer that question immediately. [Rose is doing better on her team...many days she seems the most stable.]

"Good," Slade said softly, nodding once, though the way Joe slipped the actual question... He'd pry further into that later, if Joe didn't decide to go ahead and talk. "Fairly long flight, Joe, and I know you already had one... you don't have to stay awake with me." He'd rather his son not take up the offer, but...

Joe looked at the man he respected more than almost any other, and shook his head. [Wouldn't do me any good to lay down right now, Dad. Don't sleep easily, and I'm a little keyed up.]

"All right, Joe." Slade reached out, and laid a hand on his son's shoulder. "Then tell me what's been on your mind." He settled to watch his son's hands and keep a light touch on the controls, as the long flight up to England ran on.

[I've read everything I can. I've talked to those who will open up, and I've come to a conclusion I don't like or want to accept,] Joe admitted. [We outgrew being Titans, and let the family die with our moving on.]

Slade sighed softly, "I can't tell you you're wrong, Joe. And I can't even tell you how it happened, as far away as I was staying as things got worse."

[Now the older ones...they've rejoined on the East Coast, because of Trigon...and I am not wanted there. I do not think they blame me, but...either they fear I would be a weak link, or they think they should coddle me, because of me dying once. Neither sets well.]

Slade snorted softly, shaking his head. "Or they're just not thinking. That seems to be a regular occurrence with them these days."

[What if they are, Dad?] Joe looked at his father with something Slade had rarely seen on his younger son. It was uncertainty, a lack of self-confidence. [I had so much trouble containing Match. Maybe they did think, and maybe...they're right.]

Slade shook his head. "You did handle him, though, and when it came down to it, you held them, too. Give yourself the credit you're due, son."

Joe did not look convinced. His biggest, ugliest nightmares revolved around what he had done as their puppet. And even in begging for death, he had failed to end it. [I'll figure it out eventually,Dad.]

"I know you will," Slade agreed. He wasn't about to say to his son that he wasn't always certain his doppleganger hadn't, possibly, been on to something when he threw himself against the Titans and forced them together. "Maybe it's that they know you're not likely to let them be as... dysfunctional as they've been for years."

He smiled a little at his son at that.

That bitter sound in Joe's throat was his laughter for when he had no other response to make. Moving past what had happened was not coming easily to Joe, though having his father back had helped some. [Thinking about moving on completely, away from Titans. It helped me, in New York, to leave for a time.]

Slade nodded slowly. "All right, Joe. Any thoughts about where?"

Joe shrugged. [Mom...had money set aside...just in case. May use it, see the world.] It hurt to think of his mother, of her descent into madness and her eventual loss, which was why he was here in the first place.

Slade nodded. Where some of his wife's funds had gone had been a puzzle to even her lawyers, when everything--he shook that away. It didn't surprise him at all that Joe had known where. "Not a bad idea. I'd recommend you stay out of Shanghai, though. and Beijing. You look a little too much like me."

That actually got Joe to smile, a real one that lit his eyes up, and brought out the resemblance to Adeline. [I'll keep that in mind. Might grow my hair back out, even if it does tend to curl.]

Slade nodded. "There's a Tong that's probably still a little furious with me over... well. I think you know I'm not all that subtle when I'm worried."

Joe cocked his head. [Worried?]

"I don't want to ever have you used as bait against me again." Savagery in his voice at that, then he noticed his son's question. "...they got in my way when we were trying to get to your mother."

[Oh.] Joe stilled his hands for a long moment, thinking about it. If his father, who could be a cold-blooded killer when needed, could remember the bonds of family, why did the team made up of orphans and misfits keep losing that concept?

Slade sighed softly, and started explaining that story, since his son probably hadn't heard it, not in anything resembling a true form, at least.

Joe listened intently, turning his full attention to his father, asking questions. It was obvious from his questions that he ached to get the full story of his mother's demise from Slade, but had no idea how to ask.

Slade sighed at that and backed up, telling the story from the beginning, the call from Waller, arriving in Germany, the bit of manipulation he'd run there--he didn't mind explaining it to his son any more than he'd minded explaining it to Wintergreen.

[You did right with Waller...he was always intimidated by you and your place in Mom's life,] Joe told him.

Slade chuckled. "I know. He was easier to deal with if he could be superior." He rolled his eye and picked the story back up, London to Paris to a stunt with a helicopter high in the French mountains...

[Wintergreen should have shot you!] Joe managed to sign after he got his shaking laughter under control.

"He probably should have," Slade agreed. "Though he was less furious with me then than he was..." He stopped and shook his head. "Never mind that. In any case." He went on with the story again, city after city, chasing every clue and trace, finally coming face to face with both of them, and what Addie had said to him then.

Joe listened, his eyes going dark and stormy. He reached out, touching Slade's hand before he signed again. [Mom was always angry, over me, over Grant. But...she could never deny that she loved you, not to me.]

"I know that, Joe." He took his son's hand a moment, and went back to the story in China, Mayflower and her father and Pat and the trouble there, then through until they were in Egypt deep in the desert with everything laid bare between them and before it was all over both of them were nearly dying, and only Wintergreen had kept him alive--and only his blood had managed to force the poison in her veins away. "..but she didn't survive the change sane, Joe.."

Joe swallowed hard. [That's what Roy told me.] It had been a long talk with Roy, late at night, with revelations that had left the archer with a nearly broken jaw, and Joe with a pain in his chest that would not ease that had pushed Joe to make this pilgrimage.

Slade nodded and told what had to be told of those months when he'd thought she'd died, the way he'd learned she was alive only after he'd lost almost everyone else that had ever mattered to him... and the way he'd finally truly lost her.

Joe turned his face away, to grieve again. He'd always been his mother's treasure, a fact he'd known, but she had, just as much, been one of the most important parts of his life.

Slade let him turn away, and reached down along the side of the chair to fish out a bottle of water and down part of it. He never talked that much, and the story hadn't been an easy one to tell.

It was as Slade put the bottle away that he saw Joe's hands flick, out of the corner of his eye, out the words 'I should have been here'.

Slade shook his head, and a thought struck him and made him bury his face in his hand. "She must wish she could kill me.."

Joe turned back at that, head cocked in a questioning pose.

Slade sighed. "When Grodd slit her throat..." growl in his voice. "She asked me to let her go to her, our, children. And you're here with me."

Joe formed a soundless 'O' with his lips, then shook his head. [I'd like to think she'd be happy to know I got a second chance.]

"..and that would have anything to do with her wanting to put a few more rounds in me, Joe?"  
Slade cocked his head in a gesture almost the twin to his son's.

Joe scowled at him. [You've paid more than enough for this...] he said, pointing at his throat, incongruously unscarred in this new body. He shook his head. [I knew, all my life, that you believed you were fast enough.]

Slade leaned over to wrap his arm around his son hard, leaving his eye closed for long moments. "I did, Joe."

Joe returned the hug hard, before pulling back. [Mom forgave you. She had to have. She doesn't go back on her anger easily, Dad, so that means a whole lot more than whether or not she figured out where I was in the after life.]

Slade ruffled his son's hair gently. "You always did understand her better."

[Had to, Dad...she was too dangerous not to.] Even in that subtle criticism, Joe's love for his mother shone....and yet he'd never turned from Slade, either, once they had contact restored.

Slade chuckled softly. "So true."

Joe yawned then. He looked sheepish, covering his mouth, and signed one-handed. [Nap, now.]

"Get some sleep, Joe," Slade told him, amused.

Joe moved to the back of the plane, settling there to get some sleep, praying that for once he might not have any more nightmares.

Slade kept a sharp ear on his son once Joe settled into sleep, and piloted the jet through the European airspace. the talk had taken quite a while, but it was still some time before he was setting down at the airport outside London that he frequented.

Joe had shifted as soon as the autopilot came off for landing prep, and moved back to the copilot chair, looking refreshed. He'd been twitchy in his sleep, Slade had noted, but he seemed to be handling it well.

There was a car waiting for the two of them, and Slade wasn't tired enough to put off going to Addie's family home now. He'd sleep once they were up over the Atlantic... probably.

[Want me to drive?] Joe offered.

Slade considered that, then shrugged a shoulder. "I'll let you. London traffic doesn't need shaken up by my reflexes." Joe nodded, and got in, remembering the rules for driving on this side of the Atlantic, while thinking it would never be as bad as driving in New York. Slade leaned back against the seat, and told Joe about a few changes in the roads since the last time he'd been there. Joe nodded in answer, finding a channel on the radio, and setting the volume low. He proved to be his mother's son in a lack of regard for speed limits, but got them safely to their destination.

Slade slid out of the car to deal with the locks and the gate, then slid back into the car once Joe'd pulled through. Searchers hadn't been based here in years, and the manual gate was heavy enough to give most people a good deal of trouble.

Joe looked around, shaking his head as he thought of his past, of growing up as his mother's favored child. After Joe had gotten them up to the house and Slade stepped out of the car again, he took the path around the back to reach the gardens, then the family cemetery as the sun rose fully. 

"Hello, Addie," he said softly, barely audible at all, as he looked at her stone... and shifted his body, stepping between his son and the marker of his death.

Joe had followed, and now knelt beside her stone, fingers touching, tracing her name. All that he needed to say poured out in thoughts and quick, abbreviated signs of his other hand. He missed her, wanted her guidance, wanted that sure presence she had always offered him when he was soul-searching. It was, even to him, a thing of wonder that she had never forced her will on him, letting him choose who and what he'd be.

Slade looked away from his son's conversation with his mother, and looked over what he could see of the house from here. It took Joe some time, but eventually, he stood up, looking to the marker of his brother with sadness, but more of a sense of peace than he'd felt in a long while.

Slade squeezed his son's shoulder firmly, and looked down at Addie's marker. "I miss you, Addie. Rest well, mother of my sons. I'll keep an eye on Joe," he said in quiet German. It was the language of the place they'd been happiest the longest, and enough of a barrier to Joe's ear, in his own mind at least.

Joe turned aside while his father spoke, and looked back at the house. He considered, briefly, staying here while he got his life in order, but he didn't think that would give him any more security than the tower had. 

Slade looked at the roses in full bloom in the garden, and wrapped that arm around his son's far shoulder. "Done, Joe?"

[Yes, Dad. I think...maybe I can find my way again.]

"Good. I'm glad, son." Slade moved to walk back to the car, other hand running over the stone for a moment before he stepped away.

Joe looked once more at all the stones, including the one that had not been removed that was for him, and felt a chill pass over him. He was not a superstitious man, but he'd been at Raven's side enough to understand that today would not be the end of his dealing with his mother's passing.

Slade felt the shudder, and pulled his son closer against his side. 

Joe was more than willing to walk close, back to the car, as he wondered just what lay beyond the horizon.


End file.
